You're My Little Antidepressant − June, 1999

What happened, I think, was that the timing was just right. Or wrong, depending on how you look at it.

It had been two years since Mark died. After two years of outbursts, alcohol poisoning, fights, flunking grades, sessions with the school counsellor, grief counselling with the school chaplin, visits to my family doctor and finally a visit with a psychiatrist - I was prescribed antidepressants.

Only, I didn't stay on them long. Perhaps for two months. And I felt like I was slowly unwinding inside. Everything that had been so tight for so long was starting to come undone. I could breathe. I could laugh.

This time collided with when I began dating Peter.

I wasn't sure what was making me feel like everything was finally okay again. I wasn't sure why I was happy again. I thought, it's the drugs or it's Peter. I stopped taking the pills. But the sweetness that I was feeling didn't go away. I thought, it's Peter.

It wasn't, of course. I can see that now. It was the fact that it had been two years. The grief was lifting on it's own. It was like a bruise where it had been a bleeding wound. Still there, but not consuming me any longer. Time was slowly healing things up.

But I thought, it's Peter.

And now I can understand why I could not let him go afterwards. I held onto him desperately, even when I could see that things were wrong, and things were bad. I thought that without him, I might slip back into that darkness. And so, I held on.